She didn’t consciously remember the jujitsu principle of using an attacker’s inertia against him. In fact, there was nothing in her mind at all. She simply waited to meet the massive figure hurtling toward her, then stepped aside and helped the woman go exactly where she seemed to want to go—right through the spot where Jane had just been standing—giving a little push to help speed her along her way. The result was that the woman collided headfirst with the half-height refrigerator that Jane had been standing in front of.
Jane wasn’t sure whether the resultant thunk was the product of head meeting metal or of the same head meeting oak floor a second later. In either case, it was a sickening sound. The fight was over just as suddenly as it had begun.
Jane stood for a second, dazed, considering the real possibility that her intruder was dead. You could easily break your neck colliding with a refrigerator, even if your neck happened to be as thick as this woman’s was. Then, on the other hand, she might just be stunned, ready to get up any second, really angry this time.
Jane bent down and got close enough to ascertain that her attacker was still breathing. Then, very quietly—was it possible to wake someone who had collided with a refrigerator?—she walked over to the couch and opened the woman’s little Coach leather purse. Inside was the usual girl equipment. Jane riffled past a lipstick, some keys, and a comb until she found the woman’s wallet and unsnapped it. The name on the platinum American Express card inside was Melissa Rosengolts.
“Oh, my God,” gasped Jane, suddenly understanding. In the London china shop, Jane had told Isidore Rosengolts that the clock was in her possession and that she was going back to New York on Monday. He had told her that he had a grandchild in America.
The unconscious whale on the floor had said that she hadn’t found the clock “before.” It had been Melissa Rosengolts who had broken into Jane’s apartment during Aaron Sailor’s funeral, not Willie Bogen and Valentine Treves. Melissa Rosengolts must have seen the article with Perry’s painting in the Sunday Times and gotten Jane’s address from the phonebook. Or perhaps it had been Isidore Rosengolts who had first read the newspaper in London and who had then called his granddaughter with instructions.
In either case, Jane had been no stranger to Isidore Rosengolts when she had walked into his shop last week. He must have been astounded, but he played a frighteningly good hand of poker—Jane certainly gave him that. Here, the owner of the very clock he had just conspired unsuccessfully to steal had crossed an ocean to let him know that she still had it in her possession and to present him with a nice little gift for all his trouble.
Melissa Rosengolts moaned softly.
It was time to call the police. The telephone on the table seemed no worse for having its answering machine forcibly amputated, but Jane wasn’t going to hang around and wait for Isidore Rosengolts’s granddaughter to wake up. Instead, she dashed out the door and down the stairs, not slowing down until she had reached the east side of Broadway, several blocks away. There she found a pay phone and dialed 911.
After calmly relating the details of what had happened—including the fact that her attacker might need an ambulance—she asked to be connected to Lieutenant Octavio Folly.
“You’ll have to dial that number yourself directly,” said the emergency operator.
“I don’t have his number with me,” said Jane.
“Try information,” said the operator.
“I can’t start calling all over town. Please, can’t you patch me through to him?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m an emergency operator. I can’t make personal calls for you.”
“This isn’t a personal call. It’s a call to the police.”
“I’ll be sending the police, ma’am, just as soon as we get off the phone.”
“You get me Lieutenant Folly!” Jane suddenly found herself screaming. “Octavio Folly! Nineteenth precinct! Get me Folly or I swear to God I’ll have your picture on page one of the Daily News tomorrow!”
“All right, all right,” said the voice. “Calm down, ma’am. You’re not really hysterical or you wouldn’t be able to make such a good threat. Give me the number of the phone where you’re at.”
Jane read it off the battered face of the brushed steel telephone. The 911 operator instructed her to wait by the phone. Jane hung up. She couldn’t believe she had lost control like that. She had been remarkably calm in her confrontation with Melissa Rosengolts. Why was she going to pieces now that the crisis was over?
She looked down and found that her hands were shaking. Her knuckles were scraped raw and there were several places on her body that were probably turning black and blue, judging from the way they were throbbing. Jane stood there for what seemed like an hour, shooing away old ladies and bicycle messengers who wanted to use the phone. In reality, probably no more than five minutes passed. Finally, the pay phone rang. It was Folly.
“Where have you been, Miss Sailor?” demanded the detective. “I’ve been trying to reach you for a week.”
“I had to go out of town, to England,” said Jane, afraid to laugh with relief at the sound of his voice, afraid she wouldn’t be able to stop.
“Funny time to up and go on vacation,” said Folly, oblivious. “It would have been nice to let me know that you were leaving the country.”
“It wasn’t just a vacation. I wanted to talk to the woman who modeled for a painting of my father’s that Perry Mannerback owns. She was living in the loft downstairs from Dad’s when he had his accident eight years ago. Her name was Leila Peach.”
“Leila … did you say Leila Peach?”
“Yes.”
“Leila Peach was the model in a painting that Mannerback owns? Was that the painting that was reproduced in the Times? The nude?”
“Yes,” said Jane. “I know that Leila’s dead. Mr. Danko told me.”
“Marvelous,” muttered Folly. “Just marvelous. It would have been nice to have been aware of this little tidbit when I spoke to Mr. Mannerback this morning. And what the hell is going on with you now? Why are you threatening emergency operators?”
“When I came back to my apartment, there was a woman there. We had a fight.”
“So I hear. Who was she? What did she want?”
“I don’t know,” Jane found herself saying. Suddenly it seemed important not to talk about the clock until she understood why everyone seemed to want it so badly.
“Second break-in in a month, and you don’t have any idea?”
“Why don’t you ask her?”
“We will,” said Folly. “Units should be there by now. You’re okay?”
“I’m fine,” said Jane, somehow doubting that Melissa Rosengolts would say anything either.
“Maybe the paramedics should look you over. You actually knocked this woman out?”
“Just a lucky punch with a refrigerator. I’d rather not think about it. I’m worried about Perry.”
“You should be,” growled Folly. “Mr. Mannerback is in deep, deep shit.”
The traffic on Broadway had thickened and come to a standstill. A taxicab blared its horn. Jane put a finger in her ear and huddled against the steel shell of the pay phone, trying to hear what Folly was saying.
“What did Perry say this morning when you spoke with him?” she asked urgently.
“Let’s not get into that.”
“Please, Lieutenant,” said Jane. “Perry ran out right after you talked. Nobody knows where he is.”
“We’ll find him soon enough. He’s got to come in for formal questioning. I told him so this morning. No more of this hiding-behind-attorneys runaround. If he doesn’t come in voluntarily, we’ll have him arrested.”
“Won’t there be some pretty gruesome publicity if you do that?” asked Jane. “Perry Mannerback is a very well known individual. The newspapers love him.”
Folly didn’t answer.
“If you tell me what happened this morning on the phone,” said Jane, “maybe I can find him, convince him to
come in.”
“I’d rather you didn’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“You think this is some sort of game, Miss Sailor? You think going around playing detective is fun?”
“My father was murdered,” said Jane. “I just want him to have some justice.”
“I do this for a living, Miss Sailor,” said Folly wearily. “Some men build houses or prepare tax returns or go off to work in offices. I collect statements, facts, and evidence. The D.A. takes it all to trial and sometimes people are convicted and go to jail, sometimes the case can’t be proved and killers go free. In either event it’s not about justice, it’s about the legal system, and the process is just beginning, believe me. It can go on for years. Maybe there will be justice one day, maybe there won’t, but you’re not God, and neither am I. All you’re going to accomplish by interfering is to get your heart broken as well as your head. So just let me do my job, okay?”
“I still have a lot better chance of finding Perry and convincing him to come in than you do,” said Jane.
There was a long silence, as if Folly were debating with himself whether to tell her anything more. Finally, he spoke.
“Mr. Mannerback went to see your father in the hospital.”
“Yes, I know.”
“He was your father’s last visitor the night he died.”
This time it was Jane who didn’t say anything.
“I asked Mr. Mannerback why he went to see Aaron Sailor that night,” Folly went on, “why he flew back to New York when he was halfway to Seattle with you. It seems that Dr. King’s wife was on the same plane. She told Mannerback that your father had been calling out his name in his coma.”
“Yes,” said Jane. “I know it upset Perry.”
“It upset him a lot, Miss Sailor. Contrary to your theory that it might have been some other Perry that Aaron Sailor was talking about, it seems that Perry Mannerback knew exactly why your father would be calling out his name like that, saying, ‘No, Perry, no.’ Mannerback told me he had done something terrible to your father eight years ago. He said that’s why he had paid to bring your father into Manhattan for tests—because he felt guilty. He said that’s also why he rushed back to see him at the hospital that night—to beg forgiveness, to make his peace.”
Jane swallowed hard.
“What had Perry done that was so terrible?” she asked. “Did he tell you?”
“No,” answered Folly. “He said that he preferred not to say. So I suggested that maybe Mr. Mannerback was feeling so guilty because he pushed your father down the stairs. And maybe, I also suggested, maybe it wasn’t just guilt that was motivating all this generosity of his. Maybe he paid for Aaron Sailor to be moved to Manhattan to give himself a better opportunity to inject your father with insulin because he was afraid that Aaron Sailor was waking up and would incriminate him. Did you know that Mr. Mannerback is a diabetic?”
“No,” said Jane, stunned.
“That’s right. He knows all about injecting insulin. He does it to himself every day. Perry Mannerback had a motive, knew the method, and gave himself the opportunity to murder your father.”
“If that’s what you think,” stammered Jane, “why haven’t you arrested him?”
“The District Attorney’s office doesn’t like circumstantial cases,” said Folly. “Right now, we have no physical evidence that Mannerback killed your father. If we have to go to court with circumstances, I need to understand why Perry might have pushed your father down the stairs in the first place. Now that you’ve told me that Leila Peach was the model in the painting that Perry owned, maybe I can figure it out. Were your father and Perry Mannerback both involved with Leila Peach eight years ago?”
“No,” said Jane.
“If you’re so interested in justice, Miss Sailor, then why do you want to protect a man who may have killed your father?”
“I’m telling you the truth,” said Jane. “It was Danko who was involved with her. Ted Danko.”
“Then how come Mr. Mannerback got so upset this morning when I told him a woman named Leila Peach had been found dead with his name in her address book? Why did he hang up on me when I told him he’d have to give us a formal statement detailing exactly what his relationship was with her? When I called back, he’d already skipped. Now I’m going to ask you again. Do you know where he is?”
“No,” said Jane. A group of teenagers passed by, yelling happily. She had to put a finger in her ear again to hear.
“It will be much better for him if he turns himself in,” said Folly, “but I don’t want you to go looking for him. Mannerback may very well have killed your father, Miss Sailor. It’s looking increasingly likely that he killed Leila Peach, too. Since no weapon was recovered at the scene, we’ll have to assume he’s armed.”
“No, Perry couldn’t …” said Jane. “I can’t believe …”
“Stay away from him, Miss Sailor. If you hear from Mannerback, tell him to turn himself in, but don’t get near him. He’s not your friend. He’s dangerous. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” whispered Jane.
“Now go home. The officers will need to get a statement from you.”
“Thanks, but I’d rather not be there when she wakes up.”
“The lady’s not going to give you any more trouble, I promise. I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Okay.”
Jane hung up the phone and stood in a daze, watching the endless throngs walk by on Broadway. The world had gone mad. Her life had gone mad. Even as she stood there the police were swearing out a warrant for Perry Mannerback, and the granddaughter of a man with a china shop in London was being revived and/ or arrested in Jane’s apartment. Jane had no desire to go back to the brownstone on Ninetieth Street now or ever for that matter. All she wanted was to find someone who could make sense of all this to her. Where could Perry have gone? she wondered. Who were the only true honest people in New York?
At that moment a professional dog walker rounded the corner on Eighty-ninth Street with a pack of at least twenty smiling, dopey, happy canines of all sizes and breeds.
Suddenly, Jane knew where to find Perry Mannerback. The question was, did she still want to?
Fifteen
Jane still remembered the Central Park Zoo of her childhood— a cramped and dingy place of steel bars and pacing, anxious animals. The Zoo had undergone a renovation in the late 1980s, however. Bronze creatures still danced in the captivity of the clocktower on an hourly basis, but the depressing cages were now nowhere to be found. Instead, there were habitats—a moated island for the monkeys, an indoor promenade for the penguins, an icy outdoor pool where polar bears swam.
The children’s petting zoo had recently been expanded in the enlightened design, and environments for birds and for butterflies had been added. A million people passed through each year and emerged back out into the city streets calmer and happier for the experience.
Jane found Perry Mannerback sitting on a bench at the backmost part of the Zoo, amidst the artificial boulders that had been created to make homes for red pandas, ruddy shelducks, and otters. It was a secluded and quiet spot. The lunch-hour crowds were mostly over by the front entrance, convening around the seals’ circular run, waiting for the feeding-time show.
“May I join you?” she asked, but Perry didn’t look up. His chin rested on his hands, his elbows rested on his knees. He apparently hadn’t noticed her approaching.
“May I sit down, Perry?” Jane asked again.
This time, her former employer did look up. There were dark circles under his reddened eyes. He wore a wrinkled white shirt, but no jacket or tie. He looked rumpled and miserable.
“Jane,” he said, smiling slightly and rising automatically. “What are you doing here?”
“Sometimes I get tired of people, too,” said Jane, taking a seat beside him. “At least people of the human persuasion.”
“They’re very decent chaps, the monkeys,” Perry said with a nod, si
tting back down and offering her a potato chip from a bag in his pocket. “They remind me of our board of directors, only better-looking. And the polar bears are quite something, aren’t they?”
“Olinda is worried about you, the way you ran out of the apartment this morning. So is Miss Fripp.”
Perry shrugged, but didn’t say anything.
“I understand that you spoke with the police,” said Jane.
For the first time, raw emotion flashed across Perry’s eyes.
“They accused me of … I can’t even say it, it’s so preposterous.”
“I know you wouldn’t have harmed my father.”
“No, of course not. I’ve felt terrible about this whole thing, simply terrible.”
“And now Leila Peach is dead, too.”
“Yes,” said Perry, “though I shouldn’t wonder that she would come to no good end. Horrible woman.”
Jane stared at him. Perry must have noticed her eyes widening, for he was quick to respond.
“You can’t think I had anything to do with that, can you, Jane? I haven’t seen Leila Peach for years and years. I only spoke to her a few times in my entire life.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“No, no, no. I couldn’t possibly.”
“Why not?”
“I feel so terrible. I’m so ashamed.”
“You’re in a lot of trouble, Perry. The police want to talk with you again.”
“What should I do, Jane?” asked Perry, his eyes wide. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Why don’t you tell me what happened eight years ago? I promise I won’t be mad at you. I just need to know what happened. Maybe I can help you figure out what to do.”
Perry stared at her for another moment, then nodded. The wind seemed to go out of him. He slumped down in his seat and began speaking in a very quiet voice without inflection.
“After I bought my painting, I became friendly with your father. I had him over to my place on several occasions for dinner parties—nothing fancy, just a few dozen people. He was very amusing, very nice chap. Ted Danko was at one of these gatherings, along with his wife. Your dad had brought Leila Peach. After growing accustomed to her presence in my painting, it was really quite interesting for me to meet Miss Peach in the flesh—or not in the flesh, as the case may be. She seemed nice enough. I didn’t talk with her much that first time, just marveled at the transitory nature of existence and all.”
The Girl in the Face of the Clock Page 17